MindManager and Social Networking SystemsOver the past few years, a class of web-based applications has emerged that aims to take advantage of the
strength of weak ties (as first
written about by Mark Granovetter
) between people:
Would these system benefit from an integration with MindManager? What could MindManager add to the visualizaiton's that these systems provide?
MindManager and ArchitectureBefore I joined
Mindjet, my career was about the combination of
Architecture and Information Technology. I was
educated as an architect and worked for eight years developing CAD software for building product manufacturers like Boise Cascade. I joined Mindjet because the mind mapping technique is one that I enjoy and that I have been using for years:
Becuase my colleages at Mindjet knew my of background, they connected me to some of our customers who are architects and builders who use MindManager to plan and organize the resources of architectural projects.
From my conversations with those customers, and I have been trying to understand if MindManager could be integrated with some of the systems and technologies that are used in the Architecture/Engineering/Construction (A/E/C) field. One of our biggest enthusiasts, Robin Capper, gave me an idea to map AutoCAD's DWF files and, with a minimal amount of work, I was able to create
something pretty cool:
Another idea from a user was if MindManager could be used to view and modify information in Building Information Models (BIM). This would be much more sophisiticated but I think that it would be a much more powerful integration. In the same way that we
integrated with the Salesforce.com web service, we could integrate with a building information model. The problem with that is that as web services, building information models are still in a very experimental stage with very few firms actually using them. Because the
US GSA is mandating for 2006 the usage of
IFC (Industry Foundation Classes), a BIM implementation, this might start moving along much faster.
I have started
a forum to discuss this because I want to find something in A/E/C that would really benefit from using MindManager.
